


a million dreams

by CaptainOzone



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bat Family, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is a good brother, POV Mary Grayson, Reunions, Tears will be shed, Tim Drake is a Good Brother, Time Travel, batman bingo 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23363224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainOzone/pseuds/CaptainOzone
Summary: A magical something-or-other pulls Mary and John Grayson from their final performance, mid-fall, and spits them out into a grungy alley with no idea how they got there, much less why they're there now.And to make matters worse, Dick is nowhere to be found.Written for the Batman Bingo 2020 prompt: "Time Travel." Heavily inspired by the song of the same title.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & John Grayson & Mary Grayson, John Grayson & Bruce Wayne, John Grayson/Mary Grayson, Mary Grayson & Bruce Wayne, The Flying Graysons - Relationship, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651195
Comments: 248
Kudos: 1478
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Lovely Pieces, Time Travel Fics That Water My Crops





	a million dreams

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read some of my other Batman stuff, I think it will come as no surprise to see yet another reference to _The Greatest Showman_ soundtrack here in this fic.
> 
> To be honest, I've been wanting to build a Grayson family fic around the song _A Million Dreams_ probably since the beginning, from the very moment I sat and watched this musical on the big screen for the first time (which was back in 2017, I now realize?!?!?). I wrote a little fic about the Bat Fam watching the movie themselves in my Young Justice oneshot collection _Like Fudge,_ just to curb that desire, but clearly, it was not nearly enough.
> 
> Because here we are. With me staring at the Time Travel tile on my Batman Bingo 2020 card and thinking _oh yES_. Paired with my feels from Pixar's _Onward_ and Robin's 100-page 80th Anniversary special comic, there really was no hope for me. This was inevitable.
> 
> So, thank you to the above mentioned bits of media for all the inspiration. And thank you to ErinNovelist for looking this over for me when it was a Hot Mess of a first draft. 
> 
> (And for being one of my biggest cheerleaders, of course, even when I make you cry. Love you!)

The line snaps.

In that moment, suspended between one breath and the next, in the space between raindrops in a downpour, Mary feels no fear.

The crowd freezes in a rush of noise and color. There is a single man surging to his feet before the rest, a dark form rising high above the minute waves and ripples of motion, like a bird of prey launching from its perch. 

There is John, suspended with her. Upside down. Perfect form dissolving in increments before her eyes. 

And, above, on the platform, there is Dickie. 

_Dick._

She has been called one of the best aerialists in the world. Her knowledge of her body, its limits, and its placement in the air is unparalleled, instinctual, utterly unshakeable.

In this moment, petrified in time, she knows. 

She and John are not going to survive this.

And her only thought is regret. So, so much regret that, had she not been trapped between one heart-stopping breath and the next, she’d _scream_.

Dickie’s watching.

The next raindrop falls. The next breath is finally taken. Gravity takes hold, latching and yanking like a fishhook, and as she meets Dick’s eyes, panic guts her from the inside out.

 _What is going to happen to him? What is—_?

The ground approaches. Her throat swells with tears, and she braces for impact, eyes flying closed on pure and unconscious reflex. Years of love and happiness and thrill flash through her mind, and all the dreams she and John had for the future flicker like candlelight and extinguish in a puff of trailing smoke.

 _I’m sorry, my love. I am so, so sorry, my Robin_.

A heartbeat. 

_God, I beg of you. What I would give…_

A roar of gasps from the crowd. 

_What I would sacrifice…_

An exhale.

 _For a single_ second _longer…_

And then...

She stumbles blindly forward, feet tripping over themselves as they struggle to find purchase. Her mind flips itself on its axis, and the sudden pungent stench of rotting food and pollution floods her nostrils. She falls, and her palms strike the brick wall in front of her, scraping a rough line down her forearms as her momentum carries her forward. With the wall as a brace, she steadies herself and bows her head. Bile blazes a trail up her throat, and she’s left spitting the foul taste away and quaking in the aftermath.

_What in the world?_

When she tries to open her eyes to gain her bearings, her vision pirouettes out of control, and she grits her teeth against the vertigo. She forces herself to take deep breaths until it passes. 

All the while, her heartbeat flutters like hummingbird wings, mind awhirl. Because this isn’t right _._ It can’t be. She’d—she’d been in the middle of a show with John and her in-laws. Dick was about to go on. The line—there was an accident. She’d been _falling._

She’d been about to die.

And now…

Half-convinced she’s going insane, Mary pulls herself together and looks up. City life bustles by, uncaring of the displaced woman peering out in utter confusion and distress from one of its dirty alleys.

This isn’t—this is…

From behind her, there’s a pitiful retching sound, and she spins around, far too fast. John is curled in on himself, kneeling on the filthy concrete. His performing uniform is a stained mess, face pallid underneath an assault of tears.

He meets her eyes and asks in a broken voice, “Mary?” 

She’s lowering herself to the ground and sliding her way over to him before he’s done speaking. She reaches out almost hesitantly, unconvinced he’s real, but once she makes contact, she pulls him close. He’s shaking, too. 

“Where’s Dick?” John asks in a panic. His gaze dances over the alleyway like a mosquito over swampland. “ _Where’s_ —”

_Our baby._

“I don’t know,” she whispers hoarsely, and her husband’s panic feeds into her own. Her throat closes in on itself. “I don’t know.”

John shudders, and it’s a full-body thing. By nonverbal consensus, they help each other scramble back up to their feet. She runs her hands over him, checking, again, to reassure herself of his physicality, of his presence. Because they’re alive. They’re _alive,_ and it doesn’t make any sense. Because they should be dead.

 _And yet_ , she thinks wildly, _this dingy, smelly alley is certainly no afterlife either._

“Where are we?” When Mary doesn’t respond right away, John continues rambling, “We were falling, Mary. We—tell me you—”

“No,” she assures. _You’re not crazy. You’re not wrong._ “I remember. We—we...” Her sharp gaze lands on a slip of newspaper caught in the edge of the dumpster, and she reaches for it, frantic for some clue.

John predicts her movements and, being closer, retrieves it. 

If Mary had thought her husband had no color previously, she had been wrong. “There must be a mistake,” he says, eyes wide and disbelieving as he stares, then squints, at the top of the paper. 

She takes the paper from him with trembling hands and nearly swallows her tongue.

The date reads—well, the month, she cannot read well in English, but the numerals are all too clear. _2019._

But that can’t be right. Because it’s _2000_. Late spring. Not...Not—

John takes a lurching, drunken step forward, toward the mouth of the alley, and the newspaper slips from Mary’s hold as she follows, like a marionette pulled along by her puppeteer. Her fingers bury themselves in the material of John’s suit, at the shoulders. She will not let go. Not for anything.

She finds herself thrust into an alien world, a bustling chaos of inconceivably sleek, sporty cars and distracted pedestrians, dressed in suits and street clothes in styles and patterns she does not recognize, eyes trained on small devices in their hands, ears adorned with tiny, tiny wireless headphones. 

The disharmonic skyline and chilly, overcast skies, however, are not so unfamiliar. It does not relieve her to know that, despite everything else, she is not too far from where she remembers being. 

Gotham has always been a hungry, ambitious beast of a city, and it hits her, again, that Dick is nowhere to be found.

He’s nine years old, and _he’s gone._

What does it matter, that she and John have no idea how they got here, in this moment, with no inkling of why and what it means, when _their child is missing_? 

The sudden cramps that grip her are incapacitating, and it takes everything she can to hold on to John as he comes to the same realization and plows into the masses. Shop fronts and faces pass in a blur of tears, the buildings surrounding them leaning like overeager, oppressive sentries, pressing in on them. Crushing them.

Her husband’s voice resounds above the noise of the city, accented and sharp. His conversational English is better than hers, and even though she can only understand the phrases “ _excuse me,” “my son,” “please help,_ ” and perhaps the word _“lost,”_ she is certain the panic ringing through his voice is enough for a good Samaritan to stop and help.

Surely someone can make sense of this. Surely someone will understand what it is they lost, and why it matters.

It doesn’t take long before Mary realizes Gotham’s citizens are avoiding them, skirting to the other side of the street and aggressively staring straight ahead. Some are immune, paying them no attention, captivated in their own inner world. More still stare openly, their expressions ranging from pity to disgust.

And worse yet: fear.

Gotham, she recalls with mounting distress, is not only a hungry city. It has been called a depraved one, too.

“Please,” she mimics her husband, catching the eye of a young woman waiting at a bus stop. The woman recoils from her. “ _Please_ ,” she begs another mother, whose nose wrinkles as she turns her infant’s buggy abruptly in the opposite direction.

John’s English becomes punctuated with stuttering syllables, and Mary swallows frustrated tears as she scans the streets for a payphone. She remembers Haly’s number. She can phone the police. She can—

Someone gently taps at her shoulder, and she spins, tugging John with her, all hope and breath caught in her throat.

Before her stands a handsome young man dressed in a scuffed, well-loved leather jacket and dark jeans. His dark hair is marred by a single shock of white, and for all the hard lines of his frown and his intimidating size, he is not what he appears to be. His pale eyes are gentle. Kind. 

They grow to the size of saucers as she faces him, and he takes a step back, jaw dropping in abject shock. “...Mrs. Grayson?” he asks in a very distinct Gotham accent. 

Alarm zings through her, but her subconscious reaction is dismissed almost as immediately as it appears. It occurs to her that, maybe, he is a fan. If not that, he must recognize them from the circus. He must have seen a show. Or the flyers, at the very least.

In any case, he is the first Gothamite to look at them like they are human beings rather than slugs beneath his feet, and she latches onto that like a leech.

“Yes, yes,” she says, relieved. “Please. Dick. _Richard._ Our—ah...”

“Son,” John supplies. He takes a step forward. “Please. We cannot—”

“Jason.”

A second young man, so unlike the first with his slim frame and smart suit, appears at ‘Jason’s side. He gapes, too, but not with shock. This one is starstruck, and it makes him look far younger than his dress implies. _Though,_ Mary thinks somewhat inappropriately, staring at the once-red trainers the young man had chosen to wear with his suit, _perhaps this one is a bit of a rebel, too._

The second young man mutters in rapid English to ‘Jason,’ far too fast for John to understand given the growing storm cloud of impatience on his face. Paired with the younger’s anxious gesticulations and Jason’s fierce scowl, Mary has enough of a sense of the conversation, and has hung around enough roustabouts in her life, to know when two young men are having a bloody _stupid_ row.

She doesn’t have time for this. 

“Please!” she interjects. “Please! Our son!” The two young men halt their argument to turn equally intense eyes onto her. The English tangles in her mouth, and she rambles, in Romani, “We cannot find him. We don’t know where we are or where—”

“Dick Grayson?” the younger interrupts, intelligent eyes piercing through her.

Mary could cry. “ _Yes,_ yes,” she says, this time in thick English. “Dick Grayson. Our son.”

“He is...gone. From us,” John says, speech halting and careful now that someone is actually listening to him, and actually trying to understand. Emotion holds his words captive in his throat, and as Mary squeezes his shoulders, encouraging, he struggles to find the appropriate way to explain. “He—”

The younger man steps forward, and he asks, “български?” 

“Bulgarian?” the older says in English, snorting and folding his arms. “Shit. No dice. Maybe Español? Français?”

“French!” John agrees immediately in said language, relieved. “Can you speak? Understand?”

“Well enough,” the younger returns. There’s a wry, shy smile on his face, and Mary has the odd sense that she’s seen that smile before. “Better than Romani, anyway.”

Paired with her déjà vu, something about how he mentions their mother tongue strikes Mary as unnerving—or perhaps, more _curious_ than unnerving—but John speaks before she can put her finger on why that is. “Can you tell us where we are?” he asks. “Our son is missing, and we can’t...we can’t explain how we got here. I realize how mad that sounds, but, please, we need to find him, before anything else.”

“He’s nine,” Mary emphasizes. “He’s only nine.”

The older of the two stares at them. “He’s only nine,” he repeats slowly. His French is a little more polished than the other’s, a little more natural, but it can’t hide his accent entirely.

Mary does not like his tone. It isn’t judgmental, necessarily, but there is an assessing quality in his voice that sounds just off enough to crawl under her skin. When she shoots him a sharp look, he meets her gaze levelly. 

It reads to her like a careless dare, and she bristles. 

“Come,” the younger says abruptly, extending a hand and distracting her from his companion. “We should get off the street. I promise we’ll help you find your son.”

“No,” Mary says automatically. She crosses her arms and digs her heels in. “We shouldn’t stray far from here.” 

“This is where we lost him,” John agrees. “He might come back looking for us. Perhaps you can help us call the police?”

The two young men exchange a look, and Mary becomes even more convinced that she does not want to go with them. There is something wrong—something these men are keeping from them—and she will not move until her son is presented to her, an explanation is given, or the police arrive to help. 

“Yeah, no,” the older says. “Sorry, but that’s not the best idea.” 

“And why not?” Mary demands, absolutely infuriated. 

“Please come with us,” the younger attempts again. “We’ll explain, but we can’t stay out here like this. We’re doing—no, ah..."

He snaps his fingers at Jason, who finishes the younger man's sentence with, "Attracting too much attention.”

"Yes, that," the younger says contritely.

Mary barks a disbelieving laugh. _Attracting too much_ attention _?_ Who do these men think they are? There is a child missing in a city of thousands upon thousands, and they are dallying over how she and her husband are behaving? How they are dressed? Their occupation? _What_? 

“That _is_ the idea!” she exclaims as she begins to turn away, grasping John by the elbow. “We need _help_ , not—”

“For the love of—” The man called Jason curses and mutters something unintelligible under his breath. He dashes around to cut her off. “Please, Mrs. Grayson,” he says, holding out his hands. “We have some infamous criminals that wear and use clown and circus paraphernalia to distinguish themselves. No one wants to mess with these guys or anyone associated with them, alright? In the middle of downtown Gotham, you’re attracting the _wrong_ kind of attention dressed in that get-up. You and your husband aren’t safe here, okay?”

It makes too much sense, if it’s true. And, truly, does she have reason to doubt? Even now, when Mary looks around, she can sense the distrust, the malicious apathy and insidious trepidation characterizing those who look in their direction. The fire in her belly settles momentarily...before freezing over entirely.

If she and John are not safe, then neither is Dick.

“Dick is fine,” Jason says, reading the expression on her face. When she opens her mouth to argue, he reiterates, “ _Robin is fine._ ”

Mary stops dead, a shiver tracing a line down her spine. “How do you—?”

“Mary...” John suddenly calls, voice tremulous.

She whirls around to see John staring at the mobile device in the younger man’s hand. While Jason had been speaking to her, his companion had taken John aside, and with Mary’s attention on him now, he flips the device around and holds it out to her.

On the screen is a photograph. A _familiar_ photograph. Taken just that night. Not even minutes before curtain call.

It’s their family posing with another’s. They take pictures often, and with plenty of families—so many that they begin to blend and blur together after a busy night—but she remembers this one specifically, because of the way the toddler’s parents were rushing their son along, as though his wonder and amazement at the sights and sounds of the circus were an inconvenience; as though the entire experience was a waste of their time. She remembers, because Dickie was the one who called out to the family first.

She remembers, because they were running late and he still stopped to offer a second more of his time to make someone else smile, and she cannot remember being more proud of him.

Dick is grinning up at her from the image. Sitting on his lap is a starstruck toddler with a shy smile. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Dick the entire time, not even to face the photographer, and Mary had found it absolutely charming, even more so when Dick gave the toddler a conspiratorial wink and promised in a very audible whisper that he’d do his quadruple “just for you.”

She looks up, and the toddler’s image superimposes on the face before her—vibrant blue eyes, shy smile, and all. His fingers are not so sticky or small, nor is his face round with baby fat, but there is no mistaking him for another. 

_2019,_ the date on the newspaper read. _2019._

“You,” she whispers weakly. Her memory hunts for a name, and she lands on one. “Tim?”

It’s impossible. It has to be. And yet, somehow, she and John are here, in a Gotham full of people she cannot relate to, without Dick and after a horrific fall, with an adult Tim standing before her and accompanying another young man who knows the name Robin.

Tim extends a hand to her again. 

_I know this is confusing,_ his gaze says to her. _I know this makes no sense._ “Let us help you,” he says aloud, and not in French or English. But in Romani.

_Trust us._

This time, she is too numb to do anything more than place her hand in his.

* * *

Mary watches the steam rise from her mug of tea. She sits knee-to-knee with John, dressed in borrowed sweats with the cuffs and waistband folded several times over. The room is minimalist, and while some may see it as a personal choice, Mary senses otherwise. The flat feels unlived in, clinically clean, and all the more unfriendly for it. In comparison to the lively color of Haly’s, the flat is so neutral and colorless, it is actually downright disquieting.

Jason has just returned from wherever he ran off to, only to shake his head at Tim and silently join them, hovering at the edges of the room. Across from her, Tim sighs—it’s the first sound he’s made in an eternity of resounding silence—and leans forward, elbows on his knees, expression calm. Steady. Evidence of all of Tim’s claims lie on the coffee table between them, but no newspaper clipping, book, online article, or handheld computer can make this entire situation any easier to believe.

“I’m so sorry,” Tim whispers. 

“Why are you sorry?” John asks, dumbfounded. “You did not send us twenty years into the future.”

Because, somehow, despite how hard it is to believe, it is nonetheless true. They are in 2019, when a mere hour ago they were not, propelled through time by some unknown... _something._

Mary couldn’t quite follow that part of the conversation, nor did she appreciate the odd bits and ends Tim stuck under their noses to try to discern what truly happened to them. Multiverse portals, reverse and traditional tachyons, dark matter—every last one of Tim’s suggestions sounded surreal. Science fiction. _Occult,_ even. Even for someone who has worked with psychics and mystics, who has always believed in a higher power and possibly in some powers that defy explanation, Mary thinks they’re anything _but_ rational suggestions.

And it does not help that—after some careful questioning from Tim, who requested they share their last memory with him—Tim himself verified their worst fears. The Mary and John Grayson he knew died on May 25, 2000, nearly two decades ago, and he knew this to be true, because he was one of many to witness their fall.

(She refused to look at the article he pulled up at that point. John, however, could not take his eyes away).

The ‘how’s do not matter, anyway. Not when Tim’s postulations do absolutely nothing to assuage _any_ concern Mary has about her son, who has yet to be mentioned in their conversation.

Nor do they change how she feels, knowing Tim is purposefully side-stepping around the subject, steering the conversation into neutral territory, using “facts” and “protocol” and “time paradoxes” as excuses to avoid answering any of the difficult questions.

Not that John doesn’t try.

While Mary stews and bunches the excess fabric covering her thighs between her furious, restless fingers, he begins to gently press forward. She can hear the fascinated terror in his voice, the reluctance and caution in some of his questions. He prods when he thinks he can get away with it, but Tim (and Jason, for that matter) are iron-clad and close-lipped. Even when they take breaks to argue in undertone to each other; even as Tim’s fingers fly over his mobile keyboard and Jason begins to pace the flat like a caged tiger, the tension in the room is thick enough to use as a beginner’s gymnastics mat, and neither one of them gives John and Mary anything more than apologetic grimaces and deflective answers.

They do not explain how it is they know Dick. Or where he is. Or why he isn’t here _now._ Or anything about what happened to him after...

_After._

John is patient with them, and even though Mary feels like she is going to burst like an overfilled water balloon, she trusts him when he places a hand on her knee, asking wordlessly not to go off, to let him try to get through to them first.

He asks about the supposed time travel, about what will happen if they stay—or, rather, what will happen if they end up travelling _back._ Is such a thing possible? How often has anything like this happened? Why does it happen? Why them? Why now? 

It’s Tim, surprisingly, who breaks mum. His calm façade shatters, and he runs a hand through his hair, expression twisted with no small amount of anxiety and empathy. “I don’t know,” Tim admits. “I don’t know. I wish I did. I wish I could tell you.” 

He shoots a fiery glare at the numerous devices he had brought up from “the Nest _”_ to try to figure out what in God’s name had shot Mary and John from 2000 to 2019. That glare fades into apprehension as he turns his attention to his silent mobile. Slender fingers flip the mobile over and over again, and his teeth worry at his lower lip. “It’s killing me.”

“...Is that why you are avoiding telling us?” John whispers. Mary’s gaze flicks immediately from her tea to the young man. “About Dick? ”

Tim purses his lips, and Mary sees his guard rise and then crumble again, the answer to John’s question written all over his face.

“You are very close with him,” John deduces. “You must be, to wish to protect him like this. He’s—” John’s voice cracks, but he powers through. “He’s twenty-eight now, isn’t he?”

Mary closes her eyes and bites back tears, struggling to come to terms with the implications. Their son has lived twice as long without them as he has with them. 

It is agonizing. He may not know them anymore. 

(And she cannot assume she will know _him_ anymore either. She is not sure which hurts worse).

She faces Tim and Jason, who has stopped pacing to stand at Tim’s side in a show of solidarity. “Who _are_ you to him?” Mary asks desperately, because she agrees with John. The two young men know some Romani. They know the name Robin. They are not necessarily withholding information to be difficult, are they?

No. They are doing this for _Dick._

Jason, who had allowed Tim to take the reins for the most part up until now, offers a hint of a smile and says to Tim, “Amazing. And we wonder where he gets it from?”

“Yeah,” Tim agrees softly. He exchanges a quick look with Jason before he says, “Jason and I are...kind of family.”

“Kind of,” Jason repeats in gruff agreement, as though the distinction between _kind of_ family and _family_ family is of the utmost importance. 

Unbidden relief floods Mary. _Family._ Family of any kind is the circus, and the circus is family. It is no wonder the flat feels a little empty, if Tim and Jason have been traveling with Haly’s. She wonders when the circus picked them up and why they aren’t with the circus now. Perhaps they are on break, or perhaps they only participate during the American leg of the tour, opting to stay in their hometown whenever the circus traveled internationally. Some troupes did come and go for any number of reasons, not the least of which included the inability or disinclination to travel across the world, so while it was unusual, it wasn’t necessarily unheard of.

“So he is still with Haly,” Mary breathes aloud, smiling for the first time since this whole debacle started. “Is it too much to hope they are in town now? May we—?”

Mary cuts herself off when something in Jason’s eyes staggers. He is too slow to hide his reaction, and what remained of her kindling hope violently snuffs itself out when Tim admits, “I...um, think there’s been a misunderstanding. We aren’t—”

There’s a light, brisk knock at the door. Tim cuts himself off and rises automatically to his feet. Jason, however, freezes in place and pulls a snarl. He grabs Tim by the arm before he can get any further out of the room and hisses, “You did _not_ tell Bruce.”

Tim doesn’t blink. “Protocol,” he answers, and if Mary is sick of the word, Jason looks like he could do without hearing the word ever again. His kind eyes have gone as hard as ice.

 _Are you fucking_ —? Jason mouths angrily, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. He takes a deep breath, and he switches back to English. It is not intentional, Mary thinks, but she can’t help the irritation that rises to the surface when Jason gestures toward them and doesn’t think to continue the conversation in French. “Why? Why is he aware of this before Dick is?”

Mary’s annoyance disappears, and she perks up immediately upon hearing her son’s name. John begins translating to the best of his ability under his breath.

“I texted Dick first!” Tim exclaims. “Of course I did! Who do you think I am?” 

“An utter asshole,” Jason deadpans.

Tim doesn’t take the bait. “We need help, Jay! This is in no way a normal situation, and you know how Dick is when he’s in the middle of—” Realization strikes Tim, and he says, speculatively, “You don’t suppose this was related to his mission, do you?”

Jason snorts. “Does it matter? I don’t care if he’s with the Titans, Teen Titans, or any of the others! I don’t care if he’s buried up to his balls in other people’s problems or if he’s really just there to advise the newbs on the gremlin’s team. That’s not the issue! Bruce has _no right_ to see them before he does! _We_ honestly shouldn’t even—”

“Who is Bruce?” John interjects suddenly.

Jason raises his eyebrows at Tim and sweeps his hands toward John and Mary. _Go ahead, then,_ he says without words. _You dug this hole. You lie in it. Tell them_.

Tim sighs and, facing Mary and John, adopts a tremulous smile. “We’re actually not with the circus. Bruce...Bruce is Dick’s—” He jerks a thumb between himself and Jason “— _our_ foster father,” he clarifies, a little lamely. “Adoptive father. Whichever.”

Mary’s world, held together by pure willpower, spit, and spirit at this point, comes crashing down around her. Foster. _Foster._ The word runs on repeat in her mind, growing ever more excruciating and _unfair_ with every repetition. It roars through her like a runaway train, scattering positive assumptions and hope in its wake.

Dick did not stay with the circus, then. He stayed _here._ In Gotham. In the _foster system_.

No. No, no, no. Who made this decision? Who thought this was an acceptable choice for a Flying Grayson? Fury rises within her like bonfire flames. This is no life she wanted for her son. This is—

John’s slow sigh draws her out of her head long enough to see his jaw twitch. A forced smile plasters itself on his face—bright, wide, and unfaltering. Whereas her pain is painted for the world to see, contained in the fists clenched on her lap and in the proverbial steam spiraling from her ears, his is all internal, focused in the depth of his heart, in the insincerity of his smile.

That’s when Mary realizes that, while she is focusing on the word _foster,_ John is undoubtedly focusing on the word that followed.

Before she can squeeze his hand, offer her support, he has stepped away from her. There’s a light admonishment in his tone, and a genuine twinkle in his eye, when he says, “And you’re leaving him outside in the hall? Invite him in.”

Mary cannot fathom the strength it took for John to sound so casual, so accepting, and her dislike of this man _Bruce_ intensifies, for putting her husband through this. 

Tim hesitates momentarily before ducking away to get the door. After a moment, a deep baritone voice, calming and rich, reaches her from within the flat. It sounds drily amused to her, but once Tim starts speaking, the man’s humor disappears into a vacuum. Bruce asks a question, low and serious, and the moment Tim answers, Mary hears light footsteps approaching.

Unlike with Tim, Mary recognizes the man who steps into the room immediately. She’d seen him, in the crowd. The bird of prey. Rising above all the others.

Up close, his eyes are captivating—a blue unlike she’d ever seen—but there’s something more to him than an intense gaze: his presence commands the room in a way she can’t explain. Tim orbits around the man, deferring to and simultaneously standing _with_ him. Jason scowls a greeting at him, but his body language around him tells her a different story. It is an epic of laughter and a tragedy of betrayal, but it seems to her that the ending to their story is still being written and mended in real-time.

This man is a patriarch. A mentor. A friend. Someone who may have made mistakes but someone who still inspires trust and companionship. Someone to lean on and depend on; to fight with and fight _for,_ no matter how muddied the water lying between _._

Bruce stares at her and John, questing and inquisitive, and then smiles. It is crooked and self-conscious and should not be as charming and disarming as it is _._ “Hello,” he greets.

He speaks not in French or English but in Romani.

The language is imperfect and heavily accented on his tongue, quite like it is on Tim’s, but it is more evidence Mary cannot ignore. She is surging off her feet before she can stop herself, tears blurring her vision. All the emotion she’d managed to withhold swells to the forefront, wreaking havoc in its wake and removing every last notion of civility from her head.

Despite how the newcomer towers over her, he still takes a step back when she stalks up to him and jabs a finger directly at his broad chest.

“How _dare_ you?” she demands, voice fluctuating with a sudden rampage of uncontrollable sobs. “Haly’s is his home! His _family_! You had no right to take that from him! Who do you think you are, to swoop in and—”

John grasps her shoulders from behind and tugs her gently back. In a deft move, he has her twirling around and into the comfort of his embrace, where she shudders and fractures into a million pieces. “My dear heart,” he whispers brokenly into her hair as he rubs her back. “I know, I know.”

After a moment, John collects himself and raises his head, and Mary senses more than sees him offer his hand to Bruce. 

Bruce doesn’t hesitate. He accepts the handshake. “I can’t imagine,” he says to John, now in flawless French, “how difficult this is.”

Mary half-turns to see her husband bob a short, stiff nod. Bruce awkwardly releases his hand and says, in a less-certain, openly vulnerable voice, “And I cannot impress upon you how much of an honor it is to meet you. I never...I never expected to have this opportunity.” 

He smiles again, and it occurs to Mary he is _nervous_. She slowly unravels herself from John, studying the man before her in a grudgingly new light. 

“I often wished I could, you know,” Bruce admits. A powerful fondness brightens behind his eyes, softening the frigidness of the intense color. “You have a hell of a kid, and after all he did to change my life...” He huffs a bit of an embarrassed laugh, a light flush rising to his cheeks. “If I was able to give him half of the life he deserved—the life any of my kids deserved—then...”

Mary does not miss how Jason and Tim are staring at Bruce like they’ve never seen him before, and John picks up where Bruce trailed off by asking, “What happened?”

“The city nearly took him by force, thinking the circus unfit for him,” Bruce says. “I stepped in when Haly’s couldn’t fight any longer. I...had lost my parents around his age, and I thought I saw myself in him. I thought I could help. I had the means. The pull. I took him in, before Gotham could take him for good.”

John’s eyes narrow. “There is more,” he accuses. “There is more you are not telling us.”

Bruce looks momentarily surprised, but he does not lie. “Yes.” He hesitates, and then adds, choosing his words very carefully, “We discovered later that your deaths were no accident.”

He doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t have to. Mary feels ghosts sweeping over her grave like owls in the middle of a hunt, a sudden pit of dread opening its maw in her gut. John looks similarly pale, and when he looks at her, she sees memories of horror stories, old circus myths, and bonfire tales reflecting back at her.

She thinks she’d rather not know the details. She would rather not dwell on what might have happened to Dick had Bruce not had the serendipitous desire to take him in. John must agree because, after swallowing roughly, he changes the subject. “Was he happy? With you?”

“I hope so,” Bruce admits humbly. 

“You gave him family?” John probes. He looks toward Jason and Tim. “An outlet? Opportunities? Encouragement and support?”

“A lifetime of love?” Mary tacks on, her voice not nearly as substantial as she would prefer. These are the gifts she and John wanted to provide for Dick themselves, a mantra of dreams and goals they based their parenting upon.

“I tried to. But to be honest, I did very little.” 

Jason snickers and mutters something to Tim about an _“Alfred_ ” under his breath. Tim smirks a little in response.

If Bruce is offended or otherwise thrown by the other young men’s side conversation, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he finishes, “Dick has grown far, far beyond me.” 

John stares Bruce down. Whatever he sees, he must be satisfied because he finally gifts Bruce with an understanding smile and asks, “Will you tell us?”

Bruce’s expression shutters, and Mary can see the tactful response he was building to deny them. “Time travel—” he begins slowly. “It’s...”

“None of that,” she interrupts, narrowing her eyes. Her breath has returned to her, and her tone is nonnegotiable. “From my understanding, our being here is an anomaly we cannot explain. I was just told I died. I was told my husband died. In some other time, I’m currently falling, about to meet that fate, realizing I am never going to see my son again. But that's then. Or possibly later. This is _now,_ and right now, John and I are _here,_ alive, for who knows how long and who knows to what end, and I don’t want to waste a single second of it.”

_There’s no telling how many of those seconds we have left._

“Please,” John adds. “Tell us about him.” 

It’s Jason who responds as John’s request lingers into silence. “Can’t deny a dying couple their last request, Bruce.”

There’s an inside joke there judging by the wry humor in his tone. Tim, for his part, throws a sharp elbow into Jason’s ribs. Jason merely rubs at the spot and gives Tim a classic, innocent look that reads: _What? What did I do?_ They look more like brothers in this moment than they had in the last hour, and despite herself, Mary wonders how her son slots in with them.

She has trouble imagining it. And how could she? This is Dick, at twenty-eight, carrying with him twenty years’ worth of experiences she had never been—and will never be—privy to. 

But she wants to. She wants to so desperately it physically aches.

Her nine-year-old loves people, loves attention, flourishes in social situations and gathers friends like toddlers do knickknacks. She’d always wanted—dreamed—of giving Dick siblings, having never expected the pleasure of watching him with younger kids and learning he would be a wonderful big brother.

Looking at Tim and Jason again, she amends her initial thought. Maybe she can imagine it. Whatever these men share, whatever family they have built—she thinks she’s beginning to see it.

It’s not the circus, but this is still a family. And it’s one that chose Dick.

Much in the same way she expects Dick chose _them_.

In response to the tactless comment Jason made, Bruce shoots him a lecturing, long-suffering look that Jason clearly finds unintimidating and says sternly, “We should ensure—”

“Bruce,” Tim interjects. He glances up from his phone. “He’s on his way. Two hours out.” 

Mary and John’s breath catches in sync, and as they exchange a look between themselves, their anticipation singing in tune with each other’s, Bruce wavers, and Jason says, “This is a family matter, Bruce. Nothing else. What will it hurt? Honestly?” 

When Bruce doesn’t answer immediately, Tim presses, “Give yourselves this.”

She doesn’t know why Jason and Tim suddenly opted to gang up on Bruce, especially after a full hour of giving her and John nothing but half-answers and excuses. She honestly doesn’t understand why it is this family is so conscientious and knowledgeable about the consequences of time travel either, but she is grateful—so, so grateful—to the young men when the stiff lines in Bruce’s shoulders go lax and he finally murmurs, “Okay.”

* * *

When Mary first saw John, she knew, without an inkling of doubt in her mind, that he was the one for her. The problem, as she saw it, was getting him off the trapeze long enough for him to notice the same.

Mary was not subtle. John, however, _was_.

It was a right mess at first, but once they got on the trapeze together for the first time and once both of them realized how the other communicated—and understood exactly how the other was trying to initiate something more than colleague-level acquaintance—there was no separating them.

Mary remembers the early days fondly. She remembers the stolen moments between training sessions and performances; the fights and the smiles and the whispered conversations they had in each other’s arms. She remembers racing to the outskirts of camp hand-in-hand with John; of laughing and sprinting through fields of fireflies; of laying on their backs and using each other’s fingers to paint scenes of their dreams out of the stars. They built worlds in the flames and glowing logs of their nightly bonfires, spun their own story amongst vibrant souls of the circus and weaved it around the swaths of color they found in the numerous city marketplaces they visited.

Their future was bright, vibrant, and artfully crafted from experiences they shared, gathered from every corner of the world. It was a rainbow of opportunities and plans inspired by every roaring crowd, every new routine, every time they went out to spend some time for themselves under the stars.

It wasn’t always easy—she and John were so different it took a long time to find a harmony in their relationship—but it was theirs. And it was perfect.

Mary didn’t realize she didn’t know the truest, purest meaning of the word until Dick came into their lives.

(And she wasn’t sure she could find anything more perfect in this horrible, confusing situation they were in, but again, she was proven wrong).

Bruce tells them about the boy he took in, about the man he grew to be. His Dick Grayson saved him from himself and became a safety net he never knew he needed. That a lot of people never knew they needed. It's Dick, Bruce insists, who inspired him to open his door to more kids, to pets, to a new family. One he chose for himself.

Tim and Jason, for their part, tell her and John goofy stories, inspirational stories, beautiful stories. They gripe and tease and joke, but Mary feels the depth of their affection for her son, too.

All three Waynes spend a lot of time talking about Dick’s friends, about their hodgepodge family, about how much he cared about the people around him, regardless of who they were and whether they asked for his special brand of care or not. They told them about his generosity and selflessness, his determination and his compassion, his ability to keep people from falling apart, his inclination to lose his head to his heart and the strength he possesses to sacrifice for the exact opposite.

They tell them he was once a police officer but never stopped being an acrobat, a coach, a teacher, a leader. They tell them he’s a goof, he’s a brother, a father-figure too. 

They laugh and share silly things, domestic things, big things, sad things. They mention love interests and hardships and everything in between.

Mary absorbs every word, captivated. She chuckles and cries, and some of it is hard—so hard—to hear because for all the good, there is also bad, and maybe that’s the mirror called life, but this is also her _baby_ living it.

This isn’t the future she and John dreamed of, but the more she hears, the more she decides it is not such a bad one after all.

From the sounds of it, Dick has not changed much at all, and he’s grown into himself. Into a man she can always be proud of. For someone who has the Grim Reaper lying in wait, whose timer ticks ever closer to final curtain call, that assurance is all she and John could ask for.

Two hours slip by without her notice. Without any of them noticing. The only warning they get is the sound of jingling keys and a burst of laughter from the hallway. 

Not everyone realizes right away, but when she turns, frozen in her seat and juggling between the unbearable desire to rush to the door and the crippling, thrilling fear of seeing Dick in the flesh, the others cock their heads to the door and follow her line of sight.

Mary’s heart rises straight to her throat as she waits for the door to open, and John’s hand sneaks across the couch to clasp hers.

Dick walks in as though he hasn’t a care in the world, his attention focused on the boy who trails in after him. Mary can’t make sense of what he’s saying. It’s all gobbledygook in her ears, and even if he wasn’t speaking in English, she thinks it would be much of the same. 

Because it doesn’t matter what he’s saying. All she cares about is _him._ And he is absolutely beautiful—so, so beautiful. He takes after her more than John, with the exception of his coloring, and though he has grown and his voice is unfamiliar, his smile is exactly the same, extending from ear to ear and reaching straight up and through his eyes.

The boy at his side spots them before Dick does, and his abrupt, distrustful halt and haughty “What exactly is going on here?” is enough to erase the smile from Dick’s face. 

And then those stunning blues flick toward the gathering before him.

Mary’s heart swells, a rush of love so potent she nearly loses all sense of balance as she and John rise to their feet. Elated, she takes a step forward, his name—all names, nicknames, and pet names included—forming on her lips. 

But the moment she does, he takes a step back. _Away_.

Mary aborts, a knife of disappointment and pain stabbing itself through her chest.

Dick’s gone deathly pale. He shakes his head and blinks rapidly, as if to dispel a bad hallucination, and when it doesn’t disappear to his satisfaction, he grasps the boy’s shoulder, spins them both around, and charges back out the door, slamming it behind him.

Too hurt, too stunned to move, Mary stands and stares at the barrier Dick shut between them. “He...” she stammers. “He just...?”

John, ever her opposite, doesn’t lock in place. He moves toward the door, concerned frown slashing lines of distress over his face, but he’s not the only one who’s moved. Bruce is on his feet, and after the two men meet eyes, John purses his lips and tilts his head toward the door, deferring without explanation to the other man.

Bruce barely has the time to nod in gratitude before he’s rushing out of the flat. Once the door clicks shut behind him, Jason breaks the silence with, “Fudge muffins, Timbo, what did you _do_? Did you warn Dick at _all_?”

Tim’s gone bright red, and he stammers an apology out to Mary and John. “I—I didn’t want him crashing the car on his way over,” he explained. “And what would you have me tell him, anyway? What if Mr. and Mrs. Grayson disappeared before he could get here? Can you imagine how that would make him feel? If we gave him that hope and then had to crush it?”

“It’s okay, Tim,” John says quietly. Mary catches an off note in his voice and peers up at him, confused. “I think you had good reason.”

He lifts his hands, and Mary does a double take, horrified when she looks at her hands and sees confirmation of the impossible.

Their fingertips have gone translucent.

And it’s spreading, creeping up her hands and arms like an oil spill over water.

A shock of terror makes Mary’s knees go weak. John tries to steady her, only for his fingers to slip through the solidity of her torso. By the time she’s back in control of her limbs, she sees the tail end of Jason’s graceful leap over the couch. He slides down the short hall in his socks and wrenches the door open. From her position, Mary can see Dick in a crouch as he leans against the wall, the boy and Bruce on the floor next to him. 

Dick’s eyes skirt around Jason and lock on hers.

“I know this is a shock, Dick,” Jason says, and his tone is as gentle as Mary’s ever heard it, free of the mockery and competitive edge that characterized a lot of his stories. “But I don’t think you have a lot of time left.”

Mary can read her son’s apprehension as easily as she understands her own. She gives him a tearful smile, the barest twitch of her lips, and takes the risk of stepping closer to the door. “It’s alright, my Robin,” she says softly in their mother tongue. Oddly, both Dick and the boy next to him react to the nickname. “It’s alright. I promise.”

Dick stares, gaze flicking between her and John, and then at their hands, their arms. A new, different fear takes hold of him, and in the blink of an eye, he’s pushing himself to his feet with all the grace of a dancer, Adam’s apple bobbing as he struggles against tears.

Mary holds open her arms, a silent invitation. 

The rest of the room—all the others—fade away.

It’s just her, John, and Dick.

He tackles her just like he used to, and when he trips through her phantom limbs, he doesn’t miss a beat, taking responsibility for most of the hug by wrapping his arms around _her_. He presses his face into her shoulder, then his forehead against hers, before reaching out to John and including him in his embrace too.

Mary is so busy mourning the loss of her ability to hug him back that she misses the repetitive string of inexplicable apologies and nonsensical explanations he’s giving them.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize when I touched it that this would happen. It’s...it’s your anniversary, and I didn’t _think._ I didn’t think, and it wasn’t like it was meant to work anyway. They said it was inactive—there isn’t even a djinn living in there anymore, and I suppose I shouldn’t have touched it, but it’s just that, for a brief moment, all I wanted was to—shit.” He finally draws a quaking breath. “God, I can’t believe—”

A part of Mary wants to ask what in _God’s name_ Dick thought was doing messing around with a supposedly mythological _djinn_ —inactive or otherwise—but before she can, an eerie sensation tugs at her, and it’s so reminiscent of what she felt when she was falling that she realizes she doesn’t have the time to lecture him about it. 

The revelation causes a sense of calm to descend upon her. She can’t rub Dick’s back, but she can pull away, just for a moment, and trace Eskimo kisses across his face. “Shhh,” she hushes. “It’s alright, Dickie.”

“We’re here,” John murmurs. “For however long. We’re here.”

Dick shudders against them, and after a moment, he whispers, “I...haven’t practiced in awhile.”

For a second, Mary doesn’t understand, but when his slightly clumsy Romani and ashamed face registers to her, she barks a fond, disbelieving laugh. She and John had always chided him to speak properly, and in whatever language they chose to practice that day. Dick had a head for languages ever since he was young, but as he grew, he had no motivation to practice one over the other, let alone keep them straight in his head. They often had to remind him. 

“Was that a _joke_?” John teases, shaking his head. The motion is more affectionate than anything. “Honestly, Dick.”

“It doesn’t matter, anyway, love,” Mary adds. She resists against Dick, for just a moment, to get a full look at him. Her fingers raise in an attempt to brush the hair from his face, but when they pass through, she drops them, lamely, and feels a fat tear slide down her face. “You are so _big_ ,” she marvels.

“Not too big,” Dick says with faint, lopsided grin. “I can still pull off the quadruple.”

“Because that’s the most important thing here,” Mary teases in mock-seriousness. When Dick’s humor flickers, self-conscious, she catches his attention by leaning into him and saying, “Tell me you’ve been happy. Tell me they have treated you well.”

Their stories were nice to hear, but it’s another thing to see the evidence on Dick’s face. His blue eyes are guileless, acting as windows straight to his heart. “I don’t know where I’d be without them,” he admits.

 _I love them,_ he’s telling her and John. _And they love me_.

“Okay,” she says. “That’s...” 

She chokes on her words, and John finishes her thought for her. “That’s all we need to know.”

Mary can’t feel the heat of Dick’s tears on her shoulder anymore. The weight of his arms is becoming distant, more distant...

Gone.

Both Mary and John slip through Dick’s arms. He’s crying in earnest now. “There’s so much I wish I could tell you,” he whispers, dropping his arms uselessly. “Share with you.”

Everything is starting to feel fuzzy. Mary blinks, her eyelids heavy, and struggles to focus. John wavers against her.

“Tell us,” John requests, his voice hazy. “The most important thing to you. Before we go.”

“...I don’t want you to.” Frantically, Dick looks back and finds the family who chose him nowhere in sight. They’d left, Mary supposes, and she sends them a silent _thank you._

“You’ve met Bruce?” Dick asks, words spilling in an uncontrollable ramble. “Tim and Jason? Damian, he’s—And the girls! They—”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Robin,” John says gently. “I think you know that, too.”

Dick’s face falls, and his image begins to blur before her eyes in a shifting mirage. Sometimes, she sees her boy, as she remembers him, and then the man he became. 

And then...a mask. A cape of yellow. A striking, angular line of blue. Like flickers of half-remembered dreams.

Her heart races in her ears, each thump lining up with the tick of a clock, with the spattering of gunfire in the depths of Gotham, with a cacophony of other noises she can't isolate. The tug in her gut is getting stronger, more persistent. 

“When we were falling,” Mary says, trying to smile. She can hardly feel her face. Even the innate fear of her encroaching end feels as though it’s being sucked down a drain. “Our only thought was of _you_ , Dick. All I wished was that I could have this. This last moment.”

“I have wished,” Dick admits. “Over and over again. After what happened to you, it’s always there. It may never go away.” He glances at his hands. “But I’m _okay._ I’ve _been_ okay.”

Mary blinks again and sees a line of shadows, fanning into a crowd, behind her son. They are not menacing nor are they malevolent. They glow with an inner light, each harboring a star, a dream, an _ideal_ , and, in unison, they showcase the tether that connects them to Dick. 

“Tell us more, Robin,” John prompts, faint.

“Robin,” Dick repeats. There’s a wonderful nostalgia in his voice, the story of a lifetime written in his very tone. “I...passed on that name, you know. To Jason, Tim, so many others. Because of you."

"You taught them to fly?" John asks.

"Yeah," Dick says, and John's delight and satisfaction manifests as an aura of light around him. "Yeah, I did. The name is a legacy, and I’m so proud of everyone who’s born the name since.” 

“We are too,” Mary assures immediately. She sees a flash of a yellow cape in the corner of her vision again, and the impression that follows is so strong, it's like being touched by magic.

She finds the muscles in her face responding to her again, so she smiles. And means it. 

“And we always will be,” John agrees.

Dick wipes his face and leans forward, pressing his lips to John's forehead and then Mary's. The touch is no stronger than that of a feather, but it radiates warmth from the point of origin and straight through to her heart. “Thank you.”

The tempest of emotion inside Mary is distant now, hard to connect to. All the thoughts screaming _this is unfair, give me more time, I'm not ready, _this isn’t enough_ _feel as though they belong to another person.

All that remains is what she felt when she falling—her love for her son—and a fierce, fierce pride.

She believes him when he says he’s okay. She believes Bruce, too, when he says Dick has grown beyond him.

He’s grown beyond her and John, too.

(And maybe that’s why this last, stolen moment _is_ enough after all). 

“Is there anything else?” John prompts, and Mary can hardly hear him now. Another blink, and she can hardly see her son. “I don’t think there is much time left.”

“I...” Dick scrambles, panicked, before saying, his voice like dust in the wind, “I never got to say goodbye.” 

_Please,_ Mary begs weakly, willing her ears to work for her. _Just a second longer_. _Not yet._ A sudden surge rushes through Mary’s abdomen, and she can hear Dick a little more clearly, and see him, too, wearing a strange suit of black and blue. “I thought that’s what I wanted,” Dick is saying. “But now that I have the opportunity...I don’t think I do.”

John chuckles. “Then don’t. Goodbyes always were the worst sort of ending.”

“Keep us with you instead,” Mary suggests, gaze flitting between Dick and a few of his closest shadows. “In your heart, in your dreams. As a part of your legacy.”

“Always,” Dick promises wetly. 

The shadowy visions slip and slide around her in a dizzying, adventurous, sensational spectacle. She can’t follow them all, and the more she tries to, the less she understands.

So she gives in and allows the visions to wash over her.

(She never dreamed these dreams for Dick, but she doesn’t think she could have imagined something so spectacular even if she tried).

Mary hums sleepily, and John places a hand on her shoulder. He’s suddenly physical now, more present. In fact, now that the shadows have disappeared, he’s the only physical thing she sees, the apartment and her son somewhere far away, far beyond her. She presses into John’s side and sighs. Her heartsickness strikes in a moment of stunning clarity and then dissipates into a swell of peace. 

(And so we go).

“We love you, Dickie,” Mary says, hoping beyond hope he can still hear her, and as she tilts her head onto John’s shoulder, she wishes she could still cry. Just once more.

(But then again, she’s had her _just once more_ , hasn’t she?)

John places his head atop hers and squeezes her close. “Everything you are.”

Together, they share a final exhale, and the last thing either of them hears is their Robin whispering, “Happy anniversary, Dat. Daj.” 

And finally...

“I love you, too,” Dick sobs inaudibly into an empty room.

Tears cascade down his face, and he gasps for air. There’s not enough of it to go around, not to fuel him through this level of heartbreak. 

Nor can it prepare him for the overwhelming catharsis that follows. 

He’s not sure how long he stands alone, and he’s not sure how long he stands with the others there. All he knows is the moment there is a lull in his tears, Bruce has a hand on his shoulder.

“Chum,” Bruce murmurs, allowing Dick to turn into his side-embrace. 

Bruce’s move has broken the tentative spell over his brothers. They conglomerate around him, and, for once, they do not put up a fight when Dick touches each of them—a quick brush of his shoulder against Jason’s, a ruffle of Damian’s hair, a circle rubbed into the back of Tim’s hand. 

They’ll talk later, Dick is sure. They’ll want to know what happened with Dami’s team. And why the hell there was a djinn involved, as well as where in the world it was now, if not why there was enough residual magic left on the djinn’s lamp for Dick to make a wish at all.

Dick won’t have any of the answers. It’ll drive Bruce mad, but one thing Dick understood that Bruce and some of his other family members never did was that, sometimes, there never _were_ any answers.

Dick can live with that. Having the answers means he could arrange for something like this to happen again, and the temptation of wishing his parents back in another moment of vulnerability...

No. This was enough.

This was _everything._

Dick rubs his eyes, feeling wrung dry, as sensitive as a live wire around water, and the others must expect him to joke, to reassure them he’s alright, but all he can handle right now is a simple: “Let’s go home.”

Even Jason doesn’t argue. 

They file out, one by one, and Dick lingers behind, hesitating in the doorway and looking back one last time at where his parents stood before fading in a shimmer of stardust and ripple of color.

A small smile of gratitude graces his face, and he flicks off the light.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of hate myself, and I'll accept any abuse you throw at me for hurting you like this.
> 
> In all seriousness, please inform me of any glaring mistakes, especially in regard to my use of language in this fic. I am a monolingual English speaker, so I have zero personal experience. That being said, I hope my portrayals of Mary and John's (as well as Tim's) struggles with language are both realistic and fair.


End file.
